ul little motor-boat, about twenty-seven
feet long, and carrying a twelve horse-power engine. He says she can make
twelve miles an hour if pushed, but being beamy she is as steady as a
church floor and mighty comfortable; just the kind of a craft for
cruising along a river or the bays of a coast."

Jerry groaned.

"You're killing me by inches! To tell us all this and then ask us to
settle on going up there into the woods for a two-weeks' spin! It's a
crime, that's what!" he exclaimed.

"Wait!" said Frank, mysteriously; and the others immediately drew a bit
closer, almost holding their very breath with eagerness and anticipation.

"He had this boat taken to a Southern town on the railroad, where a
navigable river flows through Northern Florida into the Gulf. Here he
also shipped all his provisions, intending to make a start just before
Christmas, when the unexpected happened. He had an accident--broke
through the ice when skating, came near being drowned, and has been laid
up with pneumonia ever since!"

"Poor chap! That's awful!" declared Bluff.

"But that isn't the worst by any means, from our standpoint, boys. His
doctor has strictly forbidden him to take that voyage this winter and is
sending him off with his tutor to some baths in Southern Europe or some
old place where he may recover his strength."

The three boys groaned in concert.

"A rough deal all around," said Jerry.

"What a disappointment it must have been, and he with his heart set on
the trip!" exclaimed Will.

"But they tell us that 'it's a poor wind that blows nobody good.' So he
has written me this letter, making a proposal," went on Frank, calmly.

"What!" shouted Jerry, clutching the arm of his chum.

"Oh! he hates to leave his fine, dandy little launch there at that town,
where there is really no accommodation for her, and would like to have
some one take her over the course to Cedar Keys, Florida, to put her up
with a boat builder he knows. And so he wrote to me," continued Frank.

"Do you mean he has asked you to go down there and take that boat, just
as he intended doing?" gasped Bluff.

"Yes, only that instead of taking two months loitering along I could do
the job in ten days, perhaps," was the answer.

"Oh! what a lucky dog you are," sighed Will; "think of the innumerable
chances for taking magnificent snapshots along the way."

"Hold on. I didn't tell you that in his letter he says particularly, 'you
and those bully good ch